But c’mon people, battles are serious! In real rap battles, reputations get made or torn apart. People spend hours analysing a rapper’s technique; his one-liners; the viciousness of his disses; whether his opponent was able to hit back. More importantly, each battle has a winner and a loser, so I’ll let the serious folks debate over who has the better economic theory. For me, it’s all about who won the battle.

As in most things, context is everything. Going into this, Keynes was the Undisputed King of econorap. His theories saved the world from the biggest financial crisis of our time, and now that economies are making paper again, he’s earned his right to a victory lap. What’s more, he’s battling a man seen as responsible for fucking the whole game up in the first place. This should be a formality.

He certainly wastes no time pointing out why he’s ‘the shit’. He’s a VIP in every club, the ladies hang on his every word and there are cocktails aplenty. By contrast, Hayek is yesterday’s man – ignored by all except for use as a punchline. Sensing that his counterpart is an irrelevance, Keynes doesn’t even give him the courtesy of a diss. He’s the only game in town.

Except this isn’t the same Keynes we knew & loved back in the day. He’s lost the hunger; the fire he used to breathe at the start of the crisis; the urgent hectoring for change. He treats the listener as if Keynesianism is a self-evident truth, and forgets that whilst he might be stackin’ that paper, many of his listeners will still be enduring gruelling times.

This may have been the final straw. Dismayed by what he feels is economic gibberish and fed-up at being patronised by leftist hangers-on (this one’s probably even a feminist! And how many schools has she influenced?!), you can see Hayek plotting his response. Sure, his theories might not be the best looking and he no longer gets invites to Federal Reserve club nights, but he’s still got pride, dammit! With that humiliation, Freddie leafs through the rap bible and turns to its most devastating trick: turning an enemy’s strength into a liability.

Is it possible, Hayek wonders, that Keynes’ playa lifestyle ain’t all what it seems? Doesn’t he enjoy his cocktails a little too much? Aren’t his hangers-on the same ones who were stroking Freddie’s ‘tache just a few years ago? By showing the listeners the darker side of his hedonistic lifestyle, he suggests that Johnny-boy might be an addict, and there’s nothing dope about a fiend. Now, economists rappers might be known for their ruthlessness, but even by their standards, this is some cold shit.

Beyond that, Hayek just wants it more. He still has scores to settle and points to prove. He cares about the game too much to let it be left to some smooth-talking showman who’s getting drunk off his own hubris. This shows in the way Freddie attacks the beat, the vigour he puts into the performance, and the brutal way he attacks his opponent:

Stood smart and stoic against a backdrop of a wretching Keynes, Hayek pulls off an against all odds triumph, proving perhaps that rappers are naturally libertarian. Perhaps Keynes should take up indie rock?

<This post is a much, much longer version of an older post on the Visible Poor, which is here. It first appeared on linksUK, which is hosting a week-long discussion about the portrayal of poverty in the media. It’s worth checking out.>

Image via abrinsky (Creative Commons)

At 12pm on the West Orchards Terrace, Coventry sits down to eat. Where Alan Bennett might’ve found pleasure watching the manners and habits of people in hotel lobbies, I’ve always found mine in the more modest surrounds of the shopping centre food court. I like watching people negotiate the different choices on offer & mulling over where to sit; the things they do while they’re eating and the ways they interact with each other.

Just in front of me, there’s a dad reading a football magazine to his young son, who, awestruck and imaging, quietly slips chips between his lips. A woman from the Debenhams make-up counter hurriedly stuffs a wrap into her mouth whilst tapping frantically on her phone. Two elderly women tuck into their ‘giant’ Yorkshire puddings, pausing occasionally to coo over a baby in a high chair. An adolescent couple, presumably on their first date, eat together in silence; cautious not to do or say anything which could cause embarrassment.

There are pizzas and pasties, cappucinos and fried chicken, toasted teacakes & ciabattas. Yet all this difference is nothing compared to the range of people you’ll find. There are smart suits and shell suits, hoodies and cardigans, short skirts, jeans, leather jackets and niqabs, and they all ventured up the escalators for coffee or food, or just to have five minutes off their feet. This is why I’ve never understood people who dismiss shopping centres as cathedrals for commerce; they can be some of the most human places on the planet.

What a lot of socialists don’t often mention is that insofar as capitalism functions – falteringly, and with innumerable inequities – it does so because the people make it function. This isn’t just because of coercion, necessity or false consciousness, but because humans have a remarkable capacity to bend the rigid, humdrum formalities of working life into something more humane.

A security guard goes over to talk to the girl who’s getting bored at her unpopular hotdog stand. Two cleaners share a joke by one of the bins. In the queue for coffee, the harassed barista still found time for banter with one of her regulars. We all find ways to endure the long shift, adapt to the tedious routine, amend the unfathomable rules: we have in-jokes, fag breaks, staff competitions and nights out. Work disciplines us, yes, but we’re the ones who civilise work, and the skills we develop help us to be better employees and better members of society.

The root cause of our gravest social problems is not big government, the welfare state, or even broken families. It is lack of work. When unemployment becomes long term, even generational, many of the values and behaviours which work develops begins to disappear. In its place are anti-social behaviours which can cause misery to otherwise upstanding working class communities. Worse still, these behaviours are then learned by their children, creating a cycle of state dependency, social exclusion, violence and abuse.

If there is a ‘social recession’, it is limited to members of a small, troubled, self-perpetuating group, which is neither reflective of the communities they blight nor the fault of one political party. It is a problem which has existed for generations and will probably persist generations from now: the only thing left to argue about is whether it’s gotten better or worse, and whether it can be solved.

But despite being unrepresentative of either the poor or the wider working class, cases such as the Edlington attacks are often the only time the media takes the time to report on poverty & deprivation. Prior to news of this attack, who can honestly say they had even heard of this small South Yorkshire town, let alone understood its character and problems? Prior to the kidnap of Shannon Matthews, who can honestly claim to have known where Dewsbury Moor was, or the demographics of the people living there? My own knowledge of Haringey is limited to the appalling crimes which happened there; I know nothing of the area or its people.

Because our view of these areas is restricted to its most infrequent but appalling crimes, we rarely take the time to examine the more generic, structural problems which exist. What’s the quality of the housing? How might the schools be improved? Do social workers have enough time to do justice to their clients? Where offending behaviour occurs, are there opportunities for community sentencing? Is there enough Early Intervention for parents who’re at risk? When your first introduction to a place makes you recoil in horror, these questions are rarely asked, and answers rarely sought.

The challenge, then, for people who campaign against poverty & inequality, is to humanise the problem; to demonstrate the struggles and champion the success stories which occur in these communities and – above all – give its residents a voice. Without that, we’ll just have to make do with a succession of bleak headlines which neither gives a true reflection of the communities in which they occurred, nor truly grapples with the causes.

One reason we think society is broken because parts of it remain invisible. That’s something we can – and must – seek to change.

I have no idea yet whether Alan Duncan is an asset or a liability to the cause of penal reform, but he certainly appears to be an ally, and is the author of two cracking soundbites:

Ms Crook wrote: ‘Alan Duncan said that the slogan “prison works” was repulsively simplistic. Anyone in politics should work to improve society and there was no more useful target than offenders.’

[…]

Ms Crook added: ‘He said, “Lock ’em up is Key Stage 1 politics.”’ Key Stage 1 is the first part of the primary-school curriculum studied by children as young as five.

To which the Mail has helpfully editorialised:

Suggesting that an old-style tough Tory approach to crime is worthy of a five-year-old will infuriate the party’s grassroots activists.

Well, if they’re going to act like five-year-olds…

Regardless of the bruised feelings the ‘lock ‘em up’ brigade will have today, Duncan is entirely correct. What’s more, it is reassuring to see that there are figures inside the Tory hierarchy who are prepared to defend their policy on prisons from the punative populism apparently favoured by David Cameron’s inner circle.

The spat within the front bench over the ‘prison ships’ proposal gives further evidence of something I’ve mentioned before. For quite some time now, it’s been apparent that there exists a real tension & contradiction in Tory justice policy, and one which will need to be resolved if the party takes power.

On the one hand there is the thoughtless, tabloid-fawning opportunism practiced by the likes of Chris Grayling. Under this ‘Key Stage 1 politics’, there is no sentence too punative, no cure but incarceration, and the only area where the conservatives would envisage more state spending is in the building of more prisons.

These are contradicted by a policy for prison reform which is, by and large, excellent. Their ‘Prisons with a Purpose’ paper, influenced heavily by outside experts and the fine work done by the Centre for Social Justice, is a thoughtful, well-informed engagement with the problem which rightly concludes that the purpose of the prison system should be reformation rather than revenge.

These conflicting instincts in Tory policy cannot coexist with each other in government because being progressive on prison reform will require restraint on sentencing which the would-be Home Secretary seems incapable of practicing. Even if he did, he would have to restrain not just his own instincts, but the reflexive vengefulness of the Tory tabloids and grassroots.

Sadly, I don’t hold out much hope that this conflict will be settled on the side of reform, but I may always be proved wrong. Until I am, Alan Duncan deserves praise for standing on the right side of an unpopular and perpetually losing battle.

If you thought the Tories’ ‘broken society’ meme was bit dystopic, this will really have you reaching for the bottle. According to Zac Goldsmith, Conservative candidate for Richmond Park and everyone’s favourite uber-green non-dom, we’re no longer living in a civilised country. Can’t wait to see that on his election posters.

In a post which implicitly supports euthanasia, Goldsmith contrasts the seemingly lenient sentence given to a convicted paedophile with a seemingly harsh sentence for a woman who ended the life of her beloved but brain damaged son.

The problem, you see, is those pesky “sanctimonious liberal commentators” who “will argue that the mark of a civilised society is its willingness to apply justice in the face of public opinion. For them, this mother is a law-breaker, just like Sweeney, and she should be punished as such.

Now, if I was going to write about how two court cases reveal what an uncivilised country we are, I’d probably think twice before accusing anyone else of sanctimony. I think I’d also take the time to ponder what a liberal commentator’s reaction to these two stories would actually be.

You see, liberals are found of liberalising things, and last time I checked, the criminal justice system hasn’t seen all that much liberalising in the past few decades. Indeed, there are quite a few ‘sanctimonious liberals’ who would go so far as to say that there shouldn’t be a custodial sentence for mercy killings, providing certain conditions are met. So under a more liberal system, the mercy killing escapes jail and the paedophile is still banged up. Am I missing something here, or is that not exactly what Zac Goldsmithis angling for?!

Seriously, I can understand why some folks have a reflexive urge to bash their opponents at any opportunity; it’s just a shame that this one couldn’t engage his brain before doing so.

As it’s one of those issues which makes trainee teachers tremble with trepidation, today we were treated to a whole day of seminars on the topic of behaviour management. Among the choices on offer, there was guidance on how to practice ‘assertive discipline’, how teachers could get involved in the ‘alternative curriculum’ and what the challenges are for children in care or foster homes. These seminars were incredibly valuable; delivered by experienced practitioners who knew what does and does not work in a classroom. At the end of it, troubled minds were eased, new ideas were hatched and enthusiasm for teaching was energised. Trouble is, everyone I spoke to felt like those seminars could’ve lasted for a week.

The truth about a PGCE course is that a year is insufficient time to train us into the teachers we’d like to be, nevermind what the schools or the state would like us to be. Sure, those who returned after Christmas are confident they can teach and are hungry to get back to it, but it’s simply not possible for us to smooth out all the rough edges, the minor flaws and missed opportunities in our teaching. The profession is simply so broad, and the requirements of trainees so numerous that there will inevitably be important areas which we never get chance to explore.

This matters because once you do qualify as a teacher, your opportunities for professional development are limited. There may be some all-day training sessions you can attend and there might be some INSET days which help departments reflect on their practice, but you don’t have the time to really dwell on your practice with peers and consider how you can make youself better. Indeed, the best option you’ve got is to return to university for further study, but if you can’t afford the fees, you’re forced to decline an opportunity which could enrich both you and your pupils.

Such is the strength of the hopes and fears we have for our children’s future, education is always one of the top issues each election year. Unfortunately, this leads political parties to become obsessive about monitoring teaching standards: the National Curriculum; SATS; Ofsted; league tables; Every Child Matters and Assessment for Learning were all intended to raise standards across the system, and yet each election finds all parties agreeing that these are insufficient metrics, and it’s time to add more.

For the Conservatives, we need to restrict the pool of applicants to one which is ‘brazenly elitist’, in the hope that by only recruiting the very best graduates, you’ll recruit only the very best teachers. There are two major problems with this. First, we still have a teacher shortage, as evidenced by the fact that there are some substantial rewards for people training to teach subjects like science and maths. Second, quite apart from the fact that there are scores of people with mediocre qualifications who are exceptional teachers, there’s no guarantee that someone who graduated from Oxbridge with a first in Mathematics is going to possess the people skills needed to succeed in a classroom. It’s quite possible that the Tories’ plans would not only lead to fewer teachers, but fewergood teachers as well.

It seems to me that the current obsession with raising teaching standards is reaching a policy cul-de-sac, so instead of reaching for poorly-thought-out, media-friendly soundbytes, how about we just accept that a year is insufficient for training us into brilliant teachers, and that we should either double the length of a PGCE or provide time for us to embark on the kind of professional development many of us would love to do?

Memo to academics: if you ever want to go into politics, publish nothing. Don’t write a single word which can be sourced back to you, and certainly nothing as provocative as Cass Sunstein has had a habit of being. Libertarians have discoveredthis article he wrote back in ’08 on the topic of conspiracy theories. They are none too happy.

On page 14 of Sunstein’s January 2008 white paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” the man who is now Obama’s head of information technology in the White House proposed that each of the following measures “will have a place under imaginable conditions” according to the strategy detailed in the essay.

1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing.

2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.

That’s right, Obama’s information czar wants to tax or ban outright, as in make illegal, political opinions that the government doesn’t approve of. To where would this be extended? A tax or a shut down order on newspapers that print stories critical of our illustrious leaders?

I feel this is a little unfair to Sunstein, or at least locates the problems with his paper in the wrong place. From my reading of it, Sunstein actually dismisses the notion of either banning conspiracy theories or taxing those individuals/groups which hold them (since both, of course, are unworkable and abhorrent propositions).

His preferred method for dealing with these nutters is what he calls “cognitive infiltration”, which he describes as “weakening or even breaking up the ideological and epistemological complexes that constitute these networks and groups.” If I’ve read him correctly, this basically means trolling internet message boards, and is a much tamer proposal than those he’s (erroneously, in my book) being criticised for.

But whose message boards to troll? The problem with Sunstein’s piece is that it’s ridiculously broad: there are conspiracy theories about the Kennedys; the CIA being responsible for heroin use in black neighbourhoods; the rulers of the world being secret lizards and Barack Obama being the antichrist/muslim/fascist/socialist.

Does a state really target all of these groups? Since Sunstein is so inspecific, it’s understandable that civillibertarians are up in arms about it. For me, I wouldn’t have ethical objections to this being practiced, providing it was targeted solely at undermining or disrupting radical and violent Islamist groups – or any domestic group which incites violence. In fact, I suspect that such a method is being practiced at Langely as we speak.

The question here is trust, and how a state can retain the trust of its citizens. Sunstein argues that even by being transparent and fulfilling Freedom of Information requests which debunk certain theories, you still won’t convince its ardent believers. This much is obvious; in addition to satisfying the conspirators’ fringe politics and/or their feeling of powerlessness, conspiracy theories are also sustained by the social interaction between people who believe them.

But whilst transparency can’t kill a good fairy tale, it can limit its scope and power. It seems to me that the only truly ethical & effective way of regulating conspiacy theories is by releasing as much factual information as possible and then allowing the consumers to do what they like with it. This won’t kill the conspiracy theory, of course, but it will undermine the argument that the state has ‘something to hide’, which can be a powerful recruiting tool. As I wrote in a slightly different context:

There are many different explanations for why conspiracy theories form and how they spread, but I think the most important cultural/political aspect is how they’re often reactions from peoples or communities who feel distanced from & distrustful of the establishment. If you reduced that amount of alienation, you’d probably reduce the number and the power of these strange alternate histories. In the end, if you feel so powerless, the government must seem a hell of a lot more powerful than it actually is.

I think this is why many conspiracy theories have a libertarian component to them, and demonstrates why government action to regulate them would’ve been self-defeating. If you want to use the state to reduce the amount of make-believe on the fringes of the public sphere, you’re only going to reinforce those who believe the state has the power to do a bunch of other shady, manipulative things. By all means, let’s monitor & disrupt those who threaten the safety of others, but by doing anything other than that, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.

The extent of the devastation is still unclear but it is likely thousands have died and many many more are trapped in the rubble. The early signs are not good, with communications down across the country Haiti’s large expatriate population are still unclear what has happened to their relatives and friends.

There is very little any of us can do but look on aghast but there are organisation which are helping.

Oxfam has long experience in Haiti, and they are rushing in teams from around the region to respond where they’re needed most. They already have a team in Port-au-Prince and their response will include providing clean water, shelter and sanitation. This is where my donation has been directed.

UNICEF have issued a statement that “Children are always the most vulnerable population in any natural disaster, and UNICEF is there for them.” UNICEF requests donations for relief for children in Haiti via their Haiti Earthquake Fund.

Medicins sand Frontieres are responding to the Earthquake in Haiti with their usual speed and efficiency and any donations would be of a great help.

Mercy Corps are also seeking donations so they can expand their aid efforts in Haiti.

More organisations seeking donations are available here. Please help in whatever way you can.

The process of producing a good lunchbox is one of trial and error; claim & counter-claim; constant negotiation between producer and customer. My brother and I weren’t easy customers to please. For a few years we were quite happy with Dairylea in our sandwiches, until we discovered that Dairylea was cheese, and ‘Mum, we don’t like cheese!‘ We went our separate ways after that: Jon took a shine to ham & tomato ketchup; I developed a thing for Bernard Matthews turkey slices, which she sprinkled with salt and sprayed with barbeque sauce.

But as soon as she’d solved the filling problem, then came an issue with the bread. Those thin slices of soft white bread which worked so well with Dairylea weren’t compatible with our various sauces, which leaked all over our fingers and (worse still) our clean white shirts. So she replaced it with those spongy, tasteless Warburton teacakes. Result.

But it was always the deserts which caused the most angst. Did we want Wagon Wheels or Chocolate Rolls? Jam Tarts or Fondant Fancies? Yoghurt or fromage frais? How do you keep yoghurt cool without resorting to an ice pack which’ll make your sandwich soggy? Had we been good enough to deserve a Tunnocks Marshmallow Teacake? And even if she did pack one, how could she make it so that the ruff n’ tumble of a rucksack didn’t get it squashed? Was there even any point putting a piece of fruit in there?

Were it not for love, my mother wouldn’t have bothered. Each tacky little Tupperware box we carried to school was an expression of devotion, and that she constantly evolved the menu to serve our fickle tastes was a sign that she wanted to send us to school with something from her to us.

Those who’re interested in reforming the British diet often make the mistake of talking about food as nothing but a clump of calories & carbohydrates, sodiums and saturates. Using the vast breadth of information about how our bodies work and what’s in the food we eat, they’ll explain the benefits of eating A, or why B should only be eaten only in moderation. From this information, they expect us to make well informed, healthy, rational choices.

Except that few of us look at food in such narrowly functional terms. Food can also be deeply personal – teeming with memory and emotion. I knew that black forest gateau was my favourite desert the moment I found out that it was grandad’s favourite desert. It’s also a fiercely stubborn habit: 15 years later, I still eat the crusts off my turkey sandwich first; Jon’s still making himself ham & ketchup; we still spoil ourselves with a nice, gooey marshmallow teacake.

My worry about the healthy eating lobby is that when they see that we’re not making the same self-evidently healthy, rational choices as they recommend, they feel the need to try a little harder, maybe see if a bit of state coercion will do the trick. That’s probably the surest way of getting people’s backs up and encouraging them to switch off entirely.

Some are going to reject all this nutritional advice in its entirety. Others will follow it obsessively. But I’m reasonably confident that most of us try, where possible, to incorporate it into our lives, so long as we possess the cultural & financial capital to do so, and it doesn’t detract from the pleasure of eating. But it seems to me that all these people can do without eliciting angry, defiant responses, is just put the information out there and let the rest of us decide what to do with it. Parents, in particular, have quite enough on their plates.

The observant among you will note that, in the aftermath of its quite calamitous election, I became increasingly sceptical about the efficacy of NATO’s presence in Afghanistan:

So Karzai’s stolen re-election cuts at the very heart of what the Obama administration is trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Any action it takes from this point on will be seen to reinforce a rotten, corrupt, powerless and fraudulent government which has not brought anywhere near enough safety, security or prosperity to a war-ravaged people. Under these conditions, I can’t see how our presence there will be anything but counter-productive.

At the time, I thought the rationale behind that post was sound: the Obama administration were seeking to practice some form of Counter-Insurgency strategy to stabilise the country. COIN only works when military operations are accompanied by civilian outreach, aid & some measure of state-building. That’s hard enough to do under normal conditions, but Karzai’s election meant that we’d now be seen to be propping up a corrupt leader. Crucially, however, I was disturbed by the prospect of equipping this corrupt & fradulent leader with his own shiny new army.

So how to square that position with this poll by the BBC which shows the people of Afghanistan feeling quite chipper about their prospects for the year? Support for the occupying forces is reasonably high, support for either the Taliban or whatever remains of Al Qaeda is low, people have noted improvements to most areas of their lives and, tellingly, economic concerns are beginning to overtake security fears as Afghanistan’s #1 political issue. Even Karzai seems to enjoy favourable approval ratings.

I suppose the small sample size and the massive jump in figures from last year could raise questions about how representative this poll is, but let’s assume for a moment that its conclusions are sound. What to make of it? Well, it’s nice to see that some people are happy, but it doesn’t mean the Afghan mission is succeeding (indeed, most commentors conclude it is not), nor that those seemingly intractable problems have gone away. However, nor can this optimism be swiftly dismissed; many of us look to the year ahead of us in the context of the year just passed, and if the public really is positive about 2010, then it suggests they had a reasonable 2009.

But it does pose us an interesting question: how much weighting should we give to opinion polls as a measure of the success or validity of a military campaign? Should these numbers strengthen the argument for remaining in Afghanistan? Would damning numbers strengthen the argument for leaving? Critics of the Iraq invasion (myself included) frequently pointed to poll numbers which said Iraqis wanted us to leave, but if those numbers had said something different, would that have changed our minds? Probably not, which unfortunately means that we tend to use public opinion only when it suits our position. In something as serious as war and peace, that’s not really satisfactory.

I know there’s a recession, freezing temperatures, and we’re at the start of what looks to be an unpleasant election campaign, but there are still times when you can smile and think “y’know what, we’re a bloody brilliant little country, aren’t we?”

As much as the bad weather has caused everything from irritation to havoc, there’s still much to enjoy in reading about the ways people coped, and plenty to admire in the many acts of kindness and heroism.

These stories are inspiring & heart-warming, but they are also so frequent as to seem mundane. These people are ordinary and they are everywhere.

I mention this because snow is, for some reason, a political issue. On his blog, Dan Hannan described how he’d been ‘public spirited’ enough to clear snow for his neighbours, and wondered:

If everyone were responsible for his own patch of pavement, the disruption caused by snow would be much diminished. Is our reliance on state intervention symptomatic of the sapping effects of big government?

Hannan’s argument here is that ‘big government’ discourages us from exhibiting the same public spirited behaviour as himself. Because there is a big, unweildy state delivering public services, we choose not to show kindness or consideration for others because we expect the government to do everything for us.

It’s a view which is also shared by the Leader of the Opposition. Here’s what David Cameron said when he gave his Hugo Young Lecture:

But as the state continued to expand, it took away from people more and more things that they should and could be doing for themselves, their families and their neighbours. Human kindness, generosity and imagination are steadily being squeezed out by the work of the state. The result is that today, the character of our society – and indeed the character of some people themselves, as actors in society, is changing.

There is less expectation to take responsibility, to work, to stand by the mother of your child, to achieve, to engage with your local community, to keep your neighbourhood clean, to respect other people and their property, to use your own discretion and judgement.

What Cameron is essentially arguing is that the state is a social evil, for it subverts all our better instincts. If this were true, then these examples of kindness and heroism would be outliers; unrepresentatuve of the country as a whole and made all the more extraordinary in light of the state’s discouragement of public-minded behaviour. According to this speech, to show human kindness, generosity and imagination is to go against the grain.

Am I the only one who thinks this an awfully pessimistic view of the country David Cameron wants to govern? There are many different arguments for slashing spending or reducing the size of the state, but to actually go to the country and say something which is just a more polite form of “we need a new government because Labour’s turned you into a bunch of bastards”, seems a little over the top.

This pessimism is something Alex Massie’s noted in the past. Cameron started out by promising to ‘let sunshine win the day’, but the closer he’s got to Downing Street, the more dystopic his depictions. As Massie puts it: “Frankly, if you were to take Tory rhetoric at face value the only sensible course, for those with the means to take it, would be emigration.”

This brings into question Cameron’s view of British life and the character or its people. Is he simply fulfilling the requirement of any opposition leader to note how terrible everything is, or does he really believe it? Were he ever in a position to answer that question honestly, it’d reveal much about his values, and about his perceptions of the people whose state he wants to govern.

Last night, I finally got around to watching the last chapter in David Tennant’s role as Dr Who. Unlike other people who were sad to see Tennant go or infuriated by an incomprehensible plot, what I found depressing about ‘The End of Time’ was something entirely different.

The Doctor’s last assistant was Donna Noble. At first, they seemed an unlikely couple: Donna came across as negative, insecure, loud, and a bit mediocre. Of course, these first impressions were soon blown away, revealing a woman who was funny, witty, caring and exceptionally smart.

The next time the Doctor encountered Donna, she was back to square one: still working as a temp, planning for an unenthusiastic marriage and with all that brilliance remaining dormant & untapped. For his parting gift, the Doctor gives her a lottery ticket.

When the credits started rolling, my first thought was: ‘what does it say about our society when the only means Donna has of improving her life is by getting married to someone she didn’t express much love for & being given a lottery ticket by a time-travelling alien?’

What the scene demonstrated was a profound lack of faith in the prospect for social mobility, and it’s something which is quite a recurrent theme in television. In soap operas, youngsters who start out with hopes of attending university rarely get there, and in Hollyoaks, even those who graduate from university struggle to find good jobs.

Then there’s the desperate karaoke contest of X-Factor. The open auditions for the show are a depressing affair; a parade of tuneless, delusional hopefuls whose motivation for winning seems more about money and fame than talent. You’ll often hear contestants talk about wanting to win to escape their past lives in deprived communities, and they’ll contrast footage of drab, gloomy-looking council estates with the Technicolor glitz of the show’s studio.

The nagging fear among Conservatives is that they’ll be punished politically for what they feel is necessary economically. There’s a concern that Cameron’s cuts will be seized upon by the Labour opposition and rejected by the voters. They worry that the coming election will only result in a one term Tory government.

Whilst that fear is justified, it may yet be negated by the scale of the task Labour faces if it wants to build a positive message for voters.

I think the perception both in our culture and amongst the electorate is that not only were the ‘boom years’ a house built on sand, but that they weren’t even all that good. If people think social mobility is achieved through lottery tickets, X-Factor or Big Brother rather than education, work or government policies, they’re not going to be receptive to the claim that a new Labour government could improve lives.

Entertainment and culture may be distinct from society, but they are influenced by it, and if people look back on the ‘days of plenty’ and conclude that opportunities for social mobility mobility only improved because of a talent show, they may not look too fondly on the party which was in power.

Since it worked out rather well for me last time, I’ve decided to test that old cliche about lightning not striking in the same place. Yes, I’ve put myself forward for the Orwell Prize. Yes, I realise that I’m full of it…

Anyway, the list below comprises what may or may not be my greatest hits. I’ve not really ranked ‘em in order of preference, but the first post is the one I’m most pleased with.

Whilst pulling this all together, I realised just how much this blog exists in a permanent state of identity crisis. Some of my posts will be wry or irreverant, some wistful, others furious. Some posts will have a quite chatty tone; others will be formal, as if I occasionally forget that blogs have commenters. Some (the majority of this list) will be quite personal and relate to background or past experience; others (the majority of the blog as a whole) will be more dry, wonkish discussions about social or foreign policy.

One of the big pieces of advice that would-be bloggers are often given is to ‘let your personality shine through’. Alas, The Bleeding Heart Show doesn’t have a personality; it has six.

I think I do that because I wouldn’t be able to sustain blogging for this long if I wrote in one particular style or about a single subject. I always thought the reason I quit writing about music because I’d run out of things to say; in hindsight, I realise that I stopped because I’d exhausted the way I said things. I’d become bored of my writing style, so I stopped writing.

So I guess it’s the fluctuations in style and subject matter which have kept this blog going for far longer than I thought I could. I realise, of course, that this is probably quite disorientating for readers who’re used to some… oh, I don’t know… consistency from their bloggers, so for those of you who keep sticking around; cheers! You’ve shown far more tenacity than me.